Movies
Primal (VOD)
“For all others and in all fairness, Primal is just crap. It’s that simple. Kill the hype now!”
I liked Wolf Creek just as much as the next guy. I liked Rogue even better. But those two flicks doesn’t mean that Australia is a new breeding ground for well-executed and all-round awesome horror-flicks. Quite the contrary, as films like Red Hill, Road Train and Primal have now shown. I’m saying this because the success of Greg McLean’s two lean films (bad pun intended) is the only source I can possibly think of for the hype that has surrounded Primal since it’s earliest teasing tidbits surfaced online.
Why the fuck anyone would buy into the hype after watching the trailer is completely beyond me, but even though that’s been out for ages people are apparently still looking forward to this crapfest. Stop! Stop now! Primal plays out like nothing more than a weak episode of the X-Files sans the FBI. The premise is kinda cool, the execution is awful and every single time the movie gears up to show some balls it eventually chickens out leaving it all the more frustrating. The only redeeming factor here is that the storyline gets so ridiculous and nonsensical towards the end that Primal ends up as a so-horribly-bad-you-have-to-laugh kinda film.
So, yeah, in case you haven’t seen the trailer and have gotten the entire storyline delivered to you there, the film goes something like this: Six friends are camping and gearing up for sex in the Australian outback. They decide they have to walk through an old cave, that we know to be dangerous because we’ve seen the opening scene where an aboriginal caveman gets attacked by some false teeth and a loud noise. Having passed through the evil cave one of the hot chicks decides to skinny dip in an evil lake which causes her to grow some false teeth of her own and attack her friends while making loud noises.
From here on it’s one terribly executed scene after another. From the guys and gals arguing over who get’s to kill the next guy who’s infected by the monster-virus to the unintentionally funny “fights” and “jumps” and all the way through to the amazingly stupid climax of bad CGI. The most frustrating thing about Primal, though, isn’t the nonsense of the dialogue, the fact that it features the single most annoying character I can recall or the unintentional comedy of the gore and action scenes. No, the one thing that really pissed me off, is that every time the script actually sports an interesting idea or intriguing concept, the filmmakers back out and don’t follow through. I mean, it’s a cool idea, that the primitive monster-people should have animalistic sex, but when it’s plainly obvious that they’re still wearing shorts, then the scene won’t have the emotional punch it apparently still has on the annoying guy. Primal is littered with these moments that could have worked, had the filmmakers had the chops to follow through.
Once I realized that this wasn’t a well-executed tale of panic and desperation, nor an ironic piece of genre-cinema (there’s a lot of Cabin Fever in here actually) – once I realized it was just badly acted crap – I started laughing. And thank bejesus for that! ‘Cause once you start laughing, the last 30 minutes are so over the top ridiculous, I actually left the cinema with a smile on my face instead of the horrible feeling of wasting my time that should have been there. I guess I’d only recommend this to people who enjoy watching filmmakers fail. For all others and in all fairness, Primal is just crap. It’s that simple. Kill the hype now!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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